William Thomas Gaddis, Jr. (December 29, 1922 – December 16, 1998) was an American novelist. The first and longest of his five novels, ''

The Recognitions ''The Recognitions'' is the 1955 debut novel of US author William Gaddis. The novel was initially poorly received by critics. After Gaddis won a National Book Award in 1975 for his second novel, ''J R'', his first work gradually received new ...

'', was named one of TIME magazine's 100 best novels from 1923 to 2005 and two others, ''

J R ''J R'' is a novel by William Gaddis published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1975. In the story, a schoolboy secretly amasses a fortune in penny stocks. ''J R'' won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1976.A Frolic of His Own ''A Frolic of His Own'' is a book by William Gaddis, published by Poseidon Press in 1994. It was his fourth novel, and it won his second U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.National Book Award for Fiction The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987 the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, but ...

. National Book Foundation: Awards
"National Book Award Winners: 1950–2009"
Retrieved March 28, 2012. A collection of his essays was published posthumously as '' The Rush for Second Place'' (2002). ''The Letters of William Gaddis'' was published by

Dalkey Archive Press Dalkey Archive Press is an American publisher of fiction, poetry, foreign translations and literary criticism specializing in the publication or republication of lesser-known, often avant-garde works. The company has offices in Funks Grove, Il ...

in February 2013. A

MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

, Gaddis is widely considered one of the first and most important American

postmodern writers Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

."William Gaddis: A Portfolio," ''Conjunctions'' 41 (2003), 373–415.

Life and career

Gaddis was born in New York City to William Thomas Gaddis, who worked "on

Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...

and in politics", and Edith (Charles) Gaddis, who worked her way up from being secretary to the president of the New York Steam Corporation to an executive position as its chief purchasing agent. When he was three, his parents separated and Gaddis was subsequently raised by his mother in

Massapequa Massapequa (, ) is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, on the South Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. It is considered the anchor community of the Greater Massapequa area. The po ...

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...

. At age 5 he was sent to Merricourt Boarding School in

Berlin, Connecticut Berlin ( ) is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 20,175 at the 2020 census. It was incorporated in 1785. The geographic center of Connecticut is located in the town. Berlin is residential and industrial, ...

. He continued in private school until the eighth grade, after which he returned to Long Island to receive his diploma at Farmingdale High School in 1941. He entered Harvard in 1941 where he was a member of the ''

Harvard Lampoon ''The Harvard Lampoon'' is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 by seven undergraduates at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Overview The ''Harvard Lampoon'' publication was founded in 1876 by seven undergraduates ...

'' (where he eventually served as President), but was asked to leave in 1944 due to an altercation with police. He worked as a

fact checker Fact-checking is the process of verifying factual information, in order to promote the veracity and correctness of reporting. Fact-checking can be conducted before (''ante hoc'') or after (''post hoc'') the text is published or otherwise dissem ...

for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' for little over a year (late February 1945 until late April 1946), then spent five years traveling in Mexico, Central America, Spain, France, England, and North Africa, returning to the United States in 1951. His first novel, ''The Recognitions'', appeared in 1955. A lengthy, complex, and allusive work, it had to wait to find its audience. Newspaper reviewers considered it overly intellectual, overwritten, and disgusting. (The book was defended by Jack Green in a series of broadsheets blasting the critics; the series was collected later under the title ''

Fire the Bastards! ''Fire the Bastards!'' was written by Jack Green and published in his magazine ''newspaper'' in 1962. It was an acerbic critique of the book reviewing industry. Green examined the initial 55 reviews that appeared in response to the publication o ...

'')"Fire The Bastards!: The Great Defender of William Gaddis"
Mark O'Connell. ''The New Yorker'', February 20, 2012. Gaddis then turned to

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. P ...

work and the making of documentary films to support himself and his family. In this role he worked for

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered on 42nd Street in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfizer ...

Eastman Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

, IBM, and the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

, among others. He also received a

National Institute of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

grant, a Rockefeller grant, and two

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

grants, all of which helped him write his second novel. In 1975 he published ''

J R ''J R'' is a novel by William Gaddis published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1975. In the story, a schoolboy secretly amasses a fortune in penny stocks. ''J R'' won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1976.National Book Award for Fiction The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987 the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, but ...

."National Book Awards – 1976"

National Book Foundation The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established, "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America". Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: 'The Joy Luc ...

. Retrieved March 28, 2012.
(With essay by Chad Post from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) ''

Carpenter's Gothic ''Carpenter's Gothic'' is the title of the third novel by William Gaddis, published in 1985 by Viking. The title connotes a "Gothic" tale of haunted isolation, in a milieu stripped of all pretensions. Gaddis's second-shortest novel, ''Carpenter ...

'' (1985) offered a shorter and more accessible picture of Gaddis's

sardonic To be sardonic is to be disdainfully or cynically humorous, or scornfully mocking. A form of wit or humour, being sardonic often involves expressing an uncomfortable truth in a clever and not necessarily malicious way, often with a degree of sk ...

worldview. Instead of struggling against misanthropy (as in ''The Recognitions'') or reluctantly giving ground to it (as in ''J R''), ''Carpenter's Gothic'' wallows in it. The continual litigation that was a theme in that book becomes the central theme and plot device in ''

A Frolic of His Own ''A Frolic of His Own'' is a book by William Gaddis, published by Poseidon Press in 1994. It was his fourth novel, and it won his second U.S. National Book Award for Fiction."National Book Awards – 1994"

. Retrieved March 28, 2012.
(With essay by Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) and was a finalist for the

National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction The National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, established in 1976,East Hampton, New York The Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York. At the time of the 2020 United States census, it had a tot ...

, of prostate cancer on December 16, 1998, but not before creating his final work, '' Agapē Agape'' (the first word of the title is the Greek ''

agapē In Christianity, agape (; ) is "the highest form of love, charity" and "the love of God for man and of man for God". This is in contrast to philia, brotherly love, or philautia, self-love, as it embraces a deep and profound sacrificial love th ...

'', meaning divine, unconditional love), which was published in 2002, a novella in the form of the last words of a character similar but not identical to his creator. '' The Rush for Second Place'', published at the same time, collected most of Gaddis's previously published nonfiction.

Family life

In May 1955 Gaddis eloped with Patsy Thompson Black (1928–2000), a model and actress who had come to New York from North Carolina to break into theater. They had two children: Sarah (b. September 1955)—who wrote a novel, ''Swallow Hard'' (1991), inspired by her relationship with her father—and Matthew (b. January 1958). Their marriage ended in divorce in 1965. In 1968 Gaddis married Judith Thompson (b. 1940), a journalist and later an antiques dealer. They separated in 1978, and the following year he reunited with Muriel Murphy Oxenberg (1926–2008), whom he had first met in 1953. They lived together until around the time when ''A Frolic of His Own'' was published (1994), which is dedicated to her. Gaddis lived alone for the remainder of his life.

Legacy and influence

Among fans of post-modern fiction, Gaddis is often acknowledged as being one of the greatest of American post-war novelists. A critic who early on appreciated his work and recognized its value is Steven Moore: in 1982 he published ''A Reader's Guide to William Gaddis's "The Recognitions"'' and in 1989 a monograph on Gaddis in the Twayne series. Gaddis's influence is vast (although frequently subterranean): for example, postmodern authors such as

Don DeLillo Donald Richard DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, perf ...

and

Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...

seem to have been influenced by Gaddis (indeed, upon publication of '' V.'', Pynchon was actually speculated to have been a pen name for Gaddis due to the similarity of styles and the dearth of information about the two authors; the

Wanda Tinasky Wanda Tinasky, ostensibly a bag lady living under a bridge in the Mendocino County area of Northern California, was the pseudonymous author of a series of playful, comic, and erudite letters sent to the '' Mendocino Commentary'' and the '' Anders ...

letters also claimed that Gaddis, Pynchon, and Jack Green were the same person), as well as authors such as

Joseph McElroy Joseph Prince McElroy (born August 21, 1930) is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. He is noted for his long postmodern novels such as '' Women and Men''. Personal background McElroy was born on August 21, 1930, in Brookl ...

William Gass William Howard Gass (July 30, 1924 – December 6, 2017) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, and philosophy professor. He wrote three novels, three collections of short stories, a collection of novellas, and seven vol ...

David Markson David Merrill Markson (December 20, 1927 – June 4, 2010)The_Egyptian_Book_of_the_Dead.html" ;"title="'The Egyptian Book of the Dead">'The Egyptian Book of the Dead'' (p. 147) * "A kind of verbal fugue" (p. 170) * "A classic traged ...

, and

David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace is widely known for his 1996 novel '' Infinite Jest'', whi ...

, who have all stated their admiration for Gaddis in general and ''The Recognitions'' in particular.

Jonathan Franzen Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel ''The Corrections'', a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Pr ...

, who in an essay in ''

'' called Gaddis "an old literary hero of mine", dubbed him 'Mr. Difficult', stating that "by a comfortable margin, the most difficult book I ever voluntarily read in its entirety was Gaddis' nine-hundred-and-fifty-six-page first novel, ''The Recognitions''.""Mr. Difficult: William Gaddis and the Problem of Hard-to-Read Books"
Jonathan Franzen. ''The New Yorker'', September 30, 2002. Transcribed by adilegian.com Franzen continued: "In the four decades following the publication of ''The Recognitions'', Gaddis's work grew angrier and angrier. It's a signature paradox of literary postmodernism: the writer whose least angry work was written first." Characters in fiction based on Gaddis include "Harry Lees" in

Chandler Brossard Chandler Brossard (July 18, 1922 – August 29, 1993) was an American novelist, writer, editor, and teacher. He wrote or edited a total of 17 books. With a challenging style and outsider characters, Brossard had limited critical success in the Un ...

's 1952 novel ''Who Walk in Darkness'', "Harold Sand" in

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian a ...

's autobiographical 1958 novella ''

The Subterraneans ''The Subterraneans'' is a 1958 novella by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. It is a semi-fictional account of his short romance with Alene Lee (1931–1991), an African-American woman, in Greenwich Village, New York. It was the first wor ...

'' and possibly "Bill Gray" in

's 1991 novel ''

Mao II ''Mao II'', published in 1991, is Don DeLillo's tenth novel. The book tells the story of a novelist, struggling to finish a novel, who travels to Lebanon to assist a writer being held hostage. The title is derived from a series of Andy Warhol silk ...

''. (DeLillo was a friend of Gaddis.) The characters "Richard Whitehurst" in Kurt Wenzel's ''Lit Life: A Novel'' (2001) and "Joshua Gel" in Stephen Dixon's ''I: A Novel'' (2002) likely are based on Gaddis. Authors clearly influenced by Gaddis include

(''

The Corrections ''The Corrections'' is a 2001 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It revolves around the troubles of an elderly Midwestern couple and their three adult children, tracing their lives from the mid-20th century to "one last Christmas" togeth ...

''),

(''Epitaph for a Tramp''),

('' A Smuggler's Bible'') and

Stanley Elkin Stanley Lawrence Elkin (May 11, 1930 – May 31, 1995) was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. His extravagant, satirical fiction revolves around American consumerism, popular culture, and male-female relationships. Biograp ...

(''The Magic Kingdom''). His life and work are the subject of a comprehensive website
The Gaddis Annotations
which has been noted in at least one academic journal as a superior example of scholarship using

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resources. Gaddis's papers are collected at

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

. The first book-length biography, Joseph Tabbi's ''Nobody Grew but the Business: On the Life and Work of William Gaddis,'' was published by

Northwestern University Press Northwestern University Press is an American publishing house affiliated with Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. It publishes 70 new titles each year in the areas of continental philosophy, poetry, Slavic and German literary criticism ...

in May 2015. His works have been translated into a number of foreign languages, including French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Chinese, Turkish, and Ukrainian.

Awards and honors

Beside the awards for particular works, Gaddis has received three other awards and honors: *The

MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and p ...

’s "Genius Award" (1982); *Election to the

American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headq ...

(1989); *The Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement (1993).

Works

Fiction *''

'' (1955) *''

J R ''J R'' is a novel by William Gaddis published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1975. In the story, a schoolboy secretly amasses a fortune in penny stocks. ''J R'' won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1976.Carpenter's Gothic ''Carpenter's Gothic'' is the title of the third novel by William Gaddis, published in 1985 by Viking. The title connotes a "Gothic" tale of haunted isolation, in a milieu stripped of all pretensions. Gaddis's second-shortest novel, ''Carpenter ...

'' (1985) *''

References

External links

The Gaddis Annotations
a comprehensive scholarly site *

at Washington University in St. Louis

at The Modern Word * *
William Gaddis
at

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

Authorities, with 15 catalog records